The nurse removed my son’s name from the incubator

Dear Delyara, Our twins were born at twenty-six weeks. One survived. One did not. For nineteen days, their incubators stood side by side with name cards taped to the glass. This morning, after our son died, a nurse removed his card while I was holding his brother. She did it carefully, perhaps hoping I would not notice. I noticed everything. The small square of clean glass where his name had been, the sound of tape coming away, the way the monitor beside the empty incubator had already been switched off. Another premature baby needed the space. I understand that hospitals cannot preserve empty beds for grieving fathers. Still, by afternoon, a new name was taped where my son’s had been. My living baby slept through all of it, his chest moving beneath wires. Everyone tells me to focus on him. They say he needs me. They are right, and the sentence still hurts. I am learning that joy and grief can occupy neighboring incubators, then one can be removed before the other is ready to understand what disappeared. Tonight, I am beside my surviving son, whispering both names so one child will never grow up believing he entered the world alone.